Roma renovatio: with a burst of museum construction, gallery inaugurations and government initiatives, the Eternal City makes its bid to become—once again—Italy's principal hub for contemporary art - Report From Italy

Art in America, June, 2003 by Shara Wasserman

Three years ago, Futuro, an organization founded in 1997 by Ludovico Pratesi to promote projects in the visual, literary and performative arts, launched (with the collaboration of Alessandra Maria Sette and Silvana Rizzo) "Giganti," an exhibition program for the Fori Imperiali. The 2001 edition juxtaposed not only ancient and contemporary but Italian and international with installations by Joseph Kosuth and Marina Abramovic, together with works by Maurizio Mochetti, Pistoletto and Domenico Bianchi. Under the auspices of Giganti, a new work by Mario Merz debuted in the Foro di Cesare last April. Pratesi's determination to familiarize the Roman public with contemporary art also takes the form of periodic shows in remote neighborhoods on the city's periphery--Garbatella, Spinaceto, Mandrione--where artists' projects engage the local architecture and spill into communal spaces, sometimes little understood, at times offending, but never unnoticed.

Contemporary art entered the Galleria Borghese for the first time in December 2002 with the inauguration of "Incontri," an exhibition marking the centennial of the Italian state's purchase of the Galleria Borghese and its renowned collection. Following the example of the 2000 exhibition "Encounters" at London's National Gallery, curator Pratesi paired seven masterpieces by the likes of Bellini, Caravaggio and Rubens with the "responses" of Carla Accardi, Cucchi, Francesco Clemente, Paladino, Kounellis, Giulio Paolini and Luigi Ontani.

However promising all this sounds, not everyone is optimistic that Rome will be able to continue what it has earnestly begun; the city's track record, after all, may not inspire confidence. But it is also true that Rome is displaying unprecedented momentum. Last March, the city council approved a comprehensive plan to further develop the Testaccio area. The former slaughterhouse will become the Citta delle Arti, home to a range of cultural and educational facilities, including MACRO and the art and architecture programs of the Third University of Rome, which already have a presence in the buildings, and a multimedia production center, the national academy of dance, an art restoration laboratory and a vast art library. These municipal resources will join the famous Scuola Popolare di Musica di Testaccio and other neighborhood cultural institutions present in the zone since the slaughterhouses ceased operations in the mid1970s. One of the most popular and populated areas of Rome promises to become a diversified hub--a forum, if you will--for contemporary culture in the Eternal City.

Information about current exhibitions in Rome can be found at www.artguide.it and www.exibar.com (both in Italian) and www.roma-o-matic.com/home_en.php3.> Shara Wasserman is director of exhibitions and instructor of contemporary art at Temple University Rome.

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